Spices

Kashmiri red chilli is prized for a specific reason: it colours a dish a deep red without the intense heat of chillies grown elsewhere, which is why so many North Indian curries lean on it for colour rather than a hotter variety. That's the chilli powder in this collection — sun-dried and stone-ground the traditional way. Alongside it you'll find a few things that don't show up in most spice collections: dried cockscomb flower (used in herbal preparations and natural dyeing as much as cooking) and Ruwangan Hach, sun-dried Kashmiri tomatoes with a smoky tang regular tomatoes don't have. Kashmiri mountain garlic rounds out the everyday cooking staples. These are ingredients specific to Kashmiri kitchens, not a generic global spice rack — worth trying even if you've never cooked with them before.